It seems that currently few peace education programmes pay attention to emotional aspects as compared with their focus on rationality (Nevo and Brem, 2002: 274), while feelings and emotions are considered important aspects in conflict situations (e.g. Stewart, 1998: 10-11).
Since negative feelings or emotions, which are often caused by low self-esteem or ‘sensed failure,’ can lead to negative behaviour or youth crime (Mosley, 1993: 3; Bruner, 1999: 37-8), it is important for the principles and practices of peace education to take account of emotional aspects which affect children’s learning and overall development. Daniel Goleman, in
‘Emotional Intelligence’ (1995), also points out that negative emotions affect children’s learning:
Students who are anxious, angry, or depressed don’t learn; people who are caught in these states do not take in information efficiently or deal with it well…powerful negative emotions twist attention toward their own preoccupations, interfering with the attempt to focus elsewhere…When emotions overwhelm concentration, what is being swamped is the mental capacity cognitive scientists call “working memory,” the ability to hold in mind all information relevant to the task at hand…On the other hand, consider the role of positive motivation – the marshaling of feelings of enthusiasm, zeal, and confidence – in achievement. (Goleman, 1995: 78-9)
Addressing the need for promoting emotional literacy, Goleman emphasises five main areas of ability adopted from Salovey’s (1990) definition of emotional intelligence (in Goleman, 1995: 43): knowing one’s emotions (self-awareness – an ability to recognise a feeling as it
happens); managing emotions (handling feelings appropriately - an ability that builds on self-awareness); motivating oneself (marshalling emotions to achieve a goal through self-motivation and self-control); recognising emotions in others (empathy which is the fundamental “people skill” – another ability that builds on emotional self-awareness), and handling relationships (skill in managing emotions in others).
This idea also forms the basis of the UK government’s recent initiative to promote social and emotional aspects of learning (SEAL), which involves personal and social development, emotional literacy (emotional intelligence), and social, emotional and behavioural skills (DfES, 2005: 6), while similar aspects of education have been practised in schools as part of the PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education) curriculum. This initiative is underpinned by supportive evidence that social and emotional aspects of learning benefit children’s improvement not only in goal-setting skills, social interactions and conflict resolution skills but also in academic performance (ibid: 8). The five broad social and emotional aspects of learning (self-awareness, managing feelings, motivation, empathy and social skills), identified in the guidelines for teachers (ibid: 6), coincide with the main areas of abilities in emotional intelligence stressed by Goleman (1995: 43) above. The UK government’s promotion of SEAL reflects the current trend that schools are expected to play an overall role in nurturing children’s emotional and social aspects of development, which used to be primarily supported by families and local communities, as pointed out by Goleman (1995):
As family life no longer offers growing numbers of children a sure footing in life, schools are left as the one place communities can turn to for correctives to children’s deficiencies in emotional and social competence. That is not to say that schools alone can stand in for all the social institutions that too often are in or nearing collapse. But since virtually every child goes to school…, it offers a place to reach children with basic lessons for living that they may never get otherwise. Emotional literacy implies an expanded mandate for schools, taking up the slack for failing families in socializing children. (Goleman, 1995: 279)
Similarly, Bickmore (1999: 243-4) notes the need for providing students with more opportunities for participation in social reality, decision making and conflict management, considering the lack of social involvement in their daily life, in comparison with earlier generations when young people often had more responsibilities for dealing with social problems and conflicts in communities organised differently from today. Therefore, Shapiro (2002b) addresses the importance of promoting children’s emotional and social aspects of development in peace education. By emphasising the ability of human beings to be compassionate, Shapiro (2002b: 144) believes that any pedagogy concerned with peace should consider not only how we think and know the world, but also ‘the extent to which we develop our capacity for feeling, empathy, and emotional connection to ourselves and to others’. Hicks (1988b: 248) also emphasises the importance of developing children’s feelings alongside skills and attitudes as a holistic approach to education, which ‘requires that both teachers and students learn how to express their feelings rather than denying them.’
It seems that some effective programmes emphasising emotional literacy, for example the Resolving Conflict Creatively Program in New York (a conflict resolution course to deal with incidents in schools and to train students as mediators), have been developed especially for the prevention of violence (Goleman, 1995: 276-7). Based on the idea that skills in preventing violence are closely connected with a whole range of emotional competencies, such as understanding and managing feelings, impulses and anger, the Program provides ‘emotional basics such as recognizing an expanded range of feelings and being able to put names to them, and empathizing’, with special attention to anger management (Goleman, 1995: 277-8). As a result, the Program has found an increase in ‘caring among the kids’ and a decrease in fights, put-downs and name-calling.
Moreover, positive self-image and self-confidence are essential for positive behaviour and relationships and for academic, personal and social success. Rawls (1973: 440) defines self-respect (or self-esteem) as having two aspects: first, self-respect includes people’s sense
of their own value, with a strong conviction of their good, and of the worthiness of their life plans. Second, self-respect implies a confidence in their own ability to fulfil their intentions.
Without self-respect, people can neither continue making efforts when experiencing failure and self-doubt, nor motivate themselves to do things that have value for them (Rawls, 1973:
440). However, as discussed previously, it seems that schooling often fails to nurture children’s self-esteem and confidence (Holt, 1965/1984; Bruner, 1999), while a lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem, like other negative feelings, potentially leads to violence such as aggression, bullying and self-harm (e.g. Davies, 2004: 121-3; Harber, 2004: 47, 70), as well as causing negative feelings such as guilt, shame, depression and anger, which could become part of the motivation for youth crime (Bruner, 1999: 37-8).
Considering this situation, it is important for peace education to adopt some measures to give children support for their self-esteem and confidence with a view to developing their full potential and personality, which is an important aspect of peace (e.g. Galtung, 1975; Curle, 1984). Reid (1991: 11) addresses the importance of children’s ‘empowering experience of learning to value themselves’ in the process of developing their self-confidence to deal with their own and others’ aggression, noting that:
If schools are to help children to a positive self-image, to value others and to work with them to respond confidently and creatively to conflict, suffering and injustice, then such schools will need to be more open, less goal-oriented and more people-centred than they often are. (Reid, 1991: 10)
In this process, it is also important to share feelings and to recognise the same feelings in others, and to value everybody’s opinions and experiences, while affirmation is particularly emphasised as essential to building confidence (Harris and Morrison, 2003: 223-4). Moreover, Bruner (1999: 37) argues that, while the state of self-esteem is significantly influenced by the availability of support offered from outside, such as a second chance given to children or affirmation for the good, the most important aspect is to provide children with the chance to
identify ‘why or how things didn’t work out as planned’. Bruner (1999: 38) also suggests that school should grant students ‘more responsibility in setting and achieving goals in all aspects of a school’s activities’.
Other general measures to promote self-esteem and positive behaviour include creating an environment where everyone is listened to and encouraged, building positive relationships, and giving respect and support to all the members in schools (Mosley, 1993: 6). While these measures should be employed in a whole school by providing ‘sanctuaries where children feel good and safe’ and ‘an inclusive atmosphere where everyone contributes to keeping the peace’
(Harris, 1999: 312), the primary elements of the measures can be practised in a classroom as a Circle-Time session linking with the PSHE curriculum (Mosley, 1993; 1996). In the Circle-Time approach, all participants sitting in a circle take an equal opportunity and responsibility for speaking, listening, taking actions, sharing and solving problems, while gaining a sense of belonging to a group and developing self-esteem and positive behaviour (Mosley, 1993: 9-10). As seen above, since many elements of the Circle-Time approach seem to overlap with some aspects of peace education in terms of the aims, underlying principles and practices, the Circle Time approach is often adopted in certain types of peace education programmes and models, including the Education for Mutual Understanding (EMU) in Northern Ireland (Tyrrell, 2002: 51-52), and a Peer Mediation model in the UK developed by Stacey and Robinson (1997).